By George Mgbeleke<\/p>\n
The Senate on Wednesday began moves to compel several Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to honour invitations from its Committee on Finance over non remittances of their internally generated revenues to the consolidated revenue fund, CFR, warning that continued non-compliance undermines legislative oversight and fiscal accountability.<\/p>\n
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa (APC Niger East), raised the matter under point of order during plenary.<\/p>\n
Musa cited Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, saying the National Assembly has constitutional powers to investigate the finances and administration of public institutions.<\/p>\n
He said the committee\u2019s investigations are aimed at assessing internally generated revenue, scrutinising financial management and ensuring compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and the Finance Act.<\/p>\n
According to him, despite receiving formal invitations, several government agencies either failed to appear or declined outright, claiming they were under no obligation to attend.<\/p>\n
The lawmaker described the position as unconstitutional and a direct challenge to the Senate\u2019s oversight responsibilities.<\/p>\n
“If this trend continues unchecked, it will erode legislative oversight, weaken fiscal accountability and reduce transparency in the management of public resources,” Musa warned.<\/p>\n
He listed defaulting agencies to include the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency, SMEDAN, Standards Organization of Nigeria, SON, and National Hajj Commission of Nigeria, NAHCON.<\/p>\n
Others are the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigeria Export-Import Bank, NEXIM, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, NEPC, Nigerian Shippers\u2019 Council, Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board, JAMB, National Examinations Council, NECO, Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, FRCN, Federal Medical Center, Jabi, etc.<\/p>\n
Musa said many of the agencies are revenue-generating institutions expected to remit operating surpluses to the Federal Government in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act and Finance Act.<\/p>\n
He alleged that some agencies remit far below the amounts required by law while retaining excessive portions of their internally generated revenue, contrary to statutory regulations.<\/p>\n
The senator urged the Senate to compel the affected agencies to appear before the Committee on Finance and account for revenue collections, expenditures and remittances to government, maintaining that enforcing compliance would strengthen transparency, promote accountability and ensure public funds are managed in accordance with the law.<\/p>\n
Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, directed Musa to bring a substantive motion on the matter at the next sitting to enable the Senate to conduct a comprehensive debate before taking a decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The Senate on Wednesday began moves to compel several Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to honour invitations from its Committee on Finance over non remittances of their internally generated revenues to the consolidated revenue fund, CFR, warning that continued non-compliance undermines legislative oversight and fiscal accountability. Chairman of the Senate Committee on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15814,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15813\/revisions\/15814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}